Popular Fanon Opinions And Their Canon Credibility
by James018
Summary: There are many questions that have long been debated among Harry Potter fans. Among them: is Ron Weasley a good friend or jealous prick? Ron/Hermione or Harry/Hermione? This is my take on those issues and others. Enjoy.


I will start by saying that this is not, strictly speaking, a story. It would be more accurate to call it a long, chaptered essay. I'm not entirely sure whether or not this fan fiction is within the rules; my personal opinion is that it is a thought-provoking work of literature that others can (I hope) enjoy and take something out of, hence it should be allowable. Either way, I would like to request that readers refrain from reviewing just to say something to the effect of "This isn't a story, it should be deleted." It serves no real purpose except to annoy me, and I don't like being annoyed all that much.

The point of this fan fiction, or whatever you wish to call it, is to discuss and give my opinion on some of the beliefs held by fans of the Harry Potter series, if the profiles and stories of authors on this website are anything to go by. Having read many stories – my 1000-odd favourites are a testament to that – I have seen the blindingly obvious, the absolutely ridiculous, and everything in between. As often happens in life, the "everything in between" category is by far the largest, and it's those that are most worth discussing, because inevitably there are – at least – two sides to the story.

So without further ado, here is my first topic:

**Ron Weasley**

Ron, in my opinion, gets a pretty tough gig in canon, but that's nothing compared to what he gets in fanon. I honestly believe that more Harry Potter fanfictioners than not hate Ron more than Voldy himself – it certainly seems that the common perception of him is a jealous prick who likes Harry more for his fame and (by extension) his money than anything else. In fan fictions that often degenerates to all-out character bashing where he has been spying on Harry for old Dumbles since first year in return for a share of Harry's endless supply of money, he tries repeatedly to make a move on Hermione only to be rebuffed, he cares about nothing but food and has awful table manners (this at least is canon!), and either dies a horrible death as retribution for betraying Harry or becomes a complete failure of a Keeper for the Chudley Cannons.

My personal opinion is that this is very, very harsh on Ron. I actually like Ron very much – not so much as a person, but as a character in the book. Next to the brains of Hermione and the courage, tenacity and all-out awesomeness of Harry, he's a pretty average bloke. Despite being put in Gryffindor, he's not all THAT brave; brave enough, in his own way, but Neville ends up being more courageous than him, which doesn't say all that much for him! He's very poor and a lot of his character defects can be put down to that, from his jealous streak to his eating habits – they say Elvis Presley overate because his childhood poverty caused him to become addicted to food once he became wealthy!

Yet the thing that makes Ron stand out the most is quite simple: he's Harry's best mate. This is where things get subjective, because detractors will point to his abandonment of Harry in both Goblet of Fire (when he believes Harry has put his name in the offending cup) and Deathly Hallows (when he walks out of the Horcrux hunt). However, let me point out that in total, in _seven years_ of Harry Potter, those two incidents add up to a few weeks. In the first instance, there is exactly 24 days between Halloween and November 24 when Harry narrowly avoids getting fried. I've seen tiffs between friends last longer, and certainly the fact that they became best friends so easily afterwards suggested it wasn't as bad a breach as initially thought. As for the second, I can only say that I probably wouldn't have lasted any longer than Ron before jumping ship, probably less; read the story again and look at the conditions they had to live in! Even then, it was only a moment of weakness, not weeks as his time away suggests at first glance; Ron specifically says later in the book that as soon as he left he regretted it, and would have come back if he hadn't Apparated right into a group of Snatchers. Afterward, he had no chance of catching Harry and Hermione as they'd moved on.

If that isn't enough for you, consider the other extreme. When do we see Harry and Ron just having fun, chatting, doing what mates do? Very rarely, in the books. Realistically, they're best mates for (most of) seven years throughout the story. They're going to form a bond that's essentially unbreakable – there's your reason why Harry accepted Ron back so easily after his transgressions – but in a book where most of the story is concentrated on the action and the conflict, us readers see little or none of this. Hence the reason why Harry and Ron's friendship is so vastly undervalued by fanfiction writers.

So, there's my opinion for everyone to see: Ron is way, WAY underrated and given far more bad press than he needs. Yes, he isn't perfect; yes, he has his moments of weakness; yes, he acts like a complete and utter prat at times. But so do we all, and that's why I feel he's possibly the best character that JKR has created; not the best person, perhaps, but the best character.

But that's my take. You can choose to believe what you want; in fact I encourage you to have your own opinions. It would be a boring world if we all thought the same way. If you disagree with something that I have said and/or want to give your own take, please leave a review and if I think you've raised a valid issue you'll be mentioned at the start of the next chapter. Also feel free to leave reviews suggesting or commenting on other issues I might write about; if it's relevant to whatever I write next I will definitely reference you. Even if you don't have much to say, reviews like "This is good, keep going" still tell me you care and that's definitely a good thing.

So that's it for now. Not sure when the next chapter's coming, I basically started this because I couldn't sleep (it's 6am as I write) and had this bouncing around in my head. Probably whenever I feel inspired next, I guess; hope it won't be too long!


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